nastyjman's road to self-pubbing

nastyjman · Apr 11, 2018

I need to be consistent with my blogging and social media-ing. It's the ugly side of being an author (at least for me). When I get home from an arduous day at work, I just want to relax, log-in on my characters and then throw shit at them until they triumph over the conflicts and dilemmas I have given them.

But if I want to be a success at this, I need to do some mercantile work. I have been silent for the past month with regards to that. My twitter feed is bear, and my last blogpost was at the end of February. However, I've been sending out short stories to magazines, so at least I'm doing something on the back-end of things. But I do need to work on the front-end of things.

I'm toying with the idea of doing some scene analysis on some movies and novels. We'll see if I commit to that. Being active in the community is another possibility, but I don't want to force myself to post on social media just because I have to.

Anyway. The short story anthology for my series is nearing completion. Once that's done, I'll be working on Book Two.

See you in a few weeks (or a month). Keep on writing!

nastyjman · May 3, 2018

May 2018 Update:

I have something planned for posting regularly on my Twitter and eventually Instagram. I don't want to reveal it now, but you'll see it eventually in my feeds.

I am finalizing the short stories for the Abandoned series. Currently four are near completion. I want to write two more just to pad the collection, so that may take another month or so.

The second novel is still simmering, but I'm planning to print that baby up this week. I can't wait to mark that up with red ink, commentary, cutting critique and some salty tears.

Compared to other indie authors, I am writing at a very slow pace. I'm okay with that. I am still getting my legs on this industry, and I'm learning as I go (though in a snail's pace).

I've canceled my Kindle Exclusive, and I'm back to distributing my book wide (hey there, click here to get my book!) I didn't like the thought of being stuck with one distributor. Also, I've invested some cash on Amazon ads. I may lose that money, but I'll chalk it up to "tuition fee."

MaeZe · May 3, 2018

Good luck, sounds like you are making progress.

I'm not sure there is a standard speed for most writers, indie published or not.

nastyjman · May 3, 2018

From the podcasts I listen to, some of them try to crank out a book a month. :gone:

I don't think I'm aiming for that kind of production; maybe one or two books a year? We'll see. I'm still working on my second book.

rwm4768 · May 4, 2018

nastyjman said:
From the podcasts I listen to, some of them try to crank out a book a month.

I don't think I'm aiming for that kind of production; maybe one or two books a year? We'll see. I'm still working on my second book.

It might be possible for me to do a book per month if I were writing full-time. But I have way too many other responsibilities. Right now, I'm managing one every three to four months, but I don't know if I can keep that up. I had a nice backlog of written books before I started self-publishing. In the last year, I've spent most of my time editing these books into shape rather than writing new material.

nastyjman · May 4, 2018

Yeah, editing really takes up a lot of time. Even if I had the funds to hire an editor, I still want to self-edit (I actually enjoy editing).

nastyjman · May 21, 2018

There's some progress with my recent attempt at advertising. I budgeted about $100 and accepted that I would lose that amount. This week, someone bought my book. Just one, but damn it I'm happy because I there's no sales the past month. Also, my assumption that the $100 would be gone was wrong. Amazon tallies how much people clicked the ad, and I would be billed by those clicks.

I'm going to research more on other avenues of advertising. I'm still on my first book, so my budget is a pittance (see above dollar figure). Once I've wrote more books, I think I can ramp the budget up.

Sydneyd · May 21, 2018

Something I have been dabbling in (too early to gauge success, though the process has worked for other authors) is micromarketing. I used to think advertisements had to have these bigs spends, but with this I'm advertising the first books of my series at $1 on Amazon (or Facebook). I figured, I could do a dollar a day (I'd heard that phrase so often! Less than a daily cup of coffee). Wish I had more data at this point to give you. I can tell, it seems like my tail (the burst I get of buys after every release) is growing longer.

nastyjman · May 21, 2018

Nice! I think micromarketing is a good term (and that line about "less than a daily cup of coffee" is from the awesome and amazing Joanna Penn). I have to check Facebook as well. I inquired about GoodReads, but they haven't reached out to me yet.

cool pop · May 22, 2018

nastyjman said:
From the podcasts I listen to, some of them try to crank out a book a month.

I don't think I'm aiming for that kind of production; maybe one or two books a year? We'll see. I'm still working on my second book.

I am a naturally fast writer and this got to me when I was with publishers because they couldn't keep up with me. LOL! I'd always have something ready for my publisher and had to wait months on them, meanwhile I'd be wracking up more books.

When I started self-publishing, I was able to release at the pace I wrote. I have so many books done usually that I have some edited while writing on new ones. That's how I always got work out fast. I used to release a book a month when I was in Kindle Unlimited. I left Kindle Unlimited and am now wide and I purposely space my work out more. I still write fast and always have books in the pipeline but no longer do I release monthly. When you are wide, you don't have to. It's Amazon that caters to new releases and the hamster wheel. With them it's all about algorithms but when you go wide you aren't as concerned about Amazon as you are if you are exclusive.

Release at the pace that's comfortable for you. Everyone is not able to release books fast and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact it can be a disadvantage after a while if you release too much because it is a such thing as reader fatigue.

Authors put too much pressure on themselves worrying about writing and publishing time. Just do you and be natural. If I was a slower writer I'd be fine with it. It wouldn't make any difference to me. We're all different.

I couldn't do one or two books a year though. For me, I don't want to go longer than three months without putting something new out.

nastyjman · May 23, 2018

Thanks Cool Pop! That's pressure off my fingers.

cool pop · May 23, 2018

You're welcome! One of the perks of self-publishing is not having to deal with pressure concerning deadlines or someone else's schedule. We make our own rules and break them if need be. ROFL!

rwm4768 · May 24, 2018

Sydneyd said:
Something I have been dabbling in (too early to gauge success, though the process has worked for other authors) is micromarketing. I used to think advertisements had to have these bigs spends, but with this I'm advertising the first books of my series at $1 on Amazon (or Facebook). I figured, I could do a dollar a day (I'd heard that phrase so often! Less than a daily cup of coffee). Wish I had more data at this point to give you. I can tell, it seems like my tail (the burst I get of buys after every release) is growing longer.

I might have to try that myself. I'm currently set at $3 a day for both my campaigns on AMS, but I rarely hit that. Maybe I could lower it to $1 a day but increase some of the more popular cost-per-click bids.

I didn't see much of a return from Facebook ads before, but they might be worth trying again.

rwm4768 · May 24, 2018

cool pop said:
I am a naturally fast writer and this got to me when I was with publishers because they couldn't keep up with me. LOL! I'd always have something ready for my publisher and had to wait months on them, meanwhile I'd be wracking up more books.

When I started self-publishing, I was able to release at the pace I wrote. I have so many books done usually that I have some edited while writing on new ones. That's how I always got work out fast. I used to release a book a month when I was in Kindle Unlimited. I left Kindle Unlimited and am now wide and I purposely space my work out more. I still write fast and always have books in the pipeline but no longer do I release monthly. When you are wide, you don't have to. It's Amazon that caters to new releases and the hamster wheel. With them it's all about algorithms but when you go wide you aren't as concerned about Amazon as you are if you are exclusive.

Release at the pace that's comfortable for you. Everyone is not able to release books fast and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact it can be a disadvantage after a while if you release too much because it is a such thing as reader fatigue.

Authors put too much pressure on themselves worrying about writing and publishing time. Just do you and be natural. If I was a slower writer I'd be fine with it. It wouldn't make any difference to me. We're all different.

I couldn't do one or two books a year though. For me, I don't want to go longer than three months without putting something new out.

I don't think I could ever do a book a month. I've seen some authors do it well. In fantasy, I've enjoyed quite a few of D.K. Holmberg's books, and he releases books very frequently. They're fairly short books (shorter than mine), but it's still impressive.

I've generally been keeping a pace of releasing a book every three to four months. For the moment, that seems sustainable for me.

Polenth · May 24, 2018

nastyjman said:
From the podcasts I listen to, some of them try to crank out a book a month.

I don't think I'm aiming for that kind of production; maybe one or two books a year? We'll see. I'm still working on my second book.

If you ever feel bad about your writing speed, you can look at my output. My average is a book every two years. We're not all cut out for speed writing.

nastyjman · May 30, 2018

Hmmm. So Amazon Marketing Services does work. Had another sale this week, and it came from the ad. Now I'm curious how to do the same for the other platforms such as Kobo, Nook and iTunes.

WriterBN · May 30, 2018

nastyjman said:
Hmmm. So Amazon Marketing Services does work. Had another sale this week, and it came from the ad. Now I'm curious how to do the same for the other platforms such as Kobo, Nook and iTunes.

Bookbub PPC ads are the best way I've found to reach the other platforms. They cost more per click, usually, than AMS, but there aren't many other advertising options for the world outside Amazon.

nastyjman · Sep 14, 2018

Okay, I think I'm finally getting the drift of things.

So far I've sold 13 books thanks to Amazon's product display. Now I know better, I guess. You gotta' spend money to make money. I had initially saw it as an expense, but now I'm seeing it more as an investment.

I haven't tried sponsored products yet, but I'll be trying it out this weekend.

nastyjman · Sep 20, 2018

I think Sponsored Product is the best currently for me. So far, I've sold two, which is kind of a good rate since I just started this five days ago. Hopefully it sells more as the campaign goes on. Now, I need to work on getting them to rate it.

nastyjman's road to self-pubbing

nastyjman

not nasty at all

nastyjman

not nasty at all

MaeZe

nastyjman

not nasty at all

rwm4768

practical experience, FTW

nastyjman

not nasty at all

nastyjman

not nasty at all

Sydneyd

Aye, ye scurvy dog!

nastyjman

not nasty at all

cool pop

It's Cool, Miss Pop if You're Nasty

nastyjman

not nasty at all

cool pop

It's Cool, Miss Pop if You're Nasty

rwm4768

practical experience, FTW

rwm4768

practical experience, FTW

Polenth

Mushroom

nastyjman

not nasty at all

WriterBN

nastyjman

not nasty at all

nastyjman

not nasty at all